590 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



that they have been made the matters of profound thought by able 

 publicists and large-minded statesmen. At first thought it seems that 

 the condition of a small body of men who have offended local laws 

 should be left to the thoughtful control of local authorities, but it is 

 soon found that the considerations involved are as broad as the spread 

 of the human race. For these reasons leading men of different nations 

 were drawn together at the late International Convention at London, 

 and for these reasons this Association was formed. Crime knows no 

 geographical limits, no boundaries of states. It is its nature to war 

 with the welfare of the human family. It must be opposed by the 

 united wisdom and virtue of all nationalities and of all forms of civili- 

 zation. While local laws must frame penal codes, and local societies 

 do the work of lifting up fallen men, still much is gained by a wide- 

 spread sympathy and cooperation. There are many things which are 

 beyond the reach of state action, in a moral point of view things 

 which do not come under the cognizance of laws, but which deeply 

 affect the welfare of the whole country. At the first view our efforts 

 seem to be limited to the justice which punishes crime, and to the 

 charity which tries to reform the criminal, but we are soon led into a 

 wider field of duty. We are apt to look upon the inmates of prisons 

 as exceptional men, unlike the mass of our people. We feel that they 

 are thorns in the side of the body politic which should be drawn out 

 and put where they will do no more harm. We regard them as men 

 who run counter to the currents of society, thus making disorder and 

 mischief. These are errors. In truth they are men who run with the 

 currents of society and who outrun them. They are men who in a 

 great degree are moved and directed by the impulses around them. 

 Their characters are formed by the civilization in which they move. 

 They are in many respects the representative men of a country. It is 

 a hard thing to draw an indictment against a criminal which is not in 

 some respects an indictment of the community in which he has lived. 

 An intelligent stranger who should visit the prisons of foreign coun- 

 tries, who should hear the histories of their inmates, would get a bet- 

 ter idea of the inner workings of their civilization than could be gained 

 by intercourse with a like number of their citizens moving in more 

 conventional circles of society. As a rule, wrong-doing is the growth 

 of influences pervading the social system, as pestilences are bred by 

 malaria. Our study into this subject soon teaches us that prisons are 

 moral hospitals where moral diseases are not only cared for, but 

 science learns the moral laws of life where it learns what endangers 

 the general welfare of the community, what insidious, pestilential 

 vapors permeate society, carrying moral disease and death into its 

 homes. Prisoners are men like ourselves, and if we would learn the 

 dangers which lurk in our pathways we must learn how they stumbled 

 and fell. I do not doubt that some men are more prone to vice than 

 others, but, after listening to thousands of prayers for pardon, I can 



